Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is the setting of Anne Elizabeth Trent’s brief but consequential stay at Miss Tynge’s finishing school. The city marks a sharp break between the excitement of leaving home and the isolation that drives her to run away, turning a school placement into the beginning of an unsupervised journey west.

The School and Its Social World

The following fall, Anne’s father took her north for a year at a finishing school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She enjoyed the train trip and arrived excited, but Miss Tynge’s quickly became a disappointment. Anne felt out of place among the northern girls, who mocked her clothes and talked about Newport, Southampton, and matinée idols she had never seen. The school’s social world seemed narrow and unfamiliar to her, and her initial enthusiasm gave way to resentment.

Homesickness and Departure

Anne cried at night, dwelling both on how much she hated the school and on her fear that Joe Washburn would never like her now. When Christmas vacation came, she had to remain with the two Miss Tynges and teachers who lived too far away to go home. She decided she could not endure the arrangement any longer. One morning, before anyone was awake, she left the house, walked to the station, bought a ticket to Washington, D.C., and boarded the first westbound train with only a toothbrush and a nightgown in her handbag.

The Journey Away from Lancaster

The departure from Lancaster led Anne into a series of encounters and places beyond the school’s reach. At Havre de Grace, where she had to change trains, she met Paul English, a young Virginian and West Point cadet. In Washington, D.C., he escorted her to the Capitol, the White House, and the Smithsonian Institute, took her to lunch at the New Willard, and put her on a train for St. Louis that night. Anne, who had been frightened traveling alone, remembered his courtesy and their easy conversation; she promised to write to him every day.

Lancaster’s importance in Anne’s story lies in this contrast between confinement and movement. The school year that was meant to shape her socially instead sharpened her homesickness and prompted her first determined escape. Two days after leaving, she walked in on her father and the boys at breakfast back home. Her father tried to scold her, but she could see that he was pleased as well, and her relief at being home outweighed any concern about the return.